As Stupid Does
by Moedad
Summary: In spite of what he once told Lt. Dan, Forrest Gump doesn't think he should allowed into Heaven. What could've changed his mind?


As Stupid Does

This story is based on the character of Forrest Gump as portrayed by Tom Hanks in the feature film, Forrest Gump.

 _From his station at the entrance, Peter watched the man, dressed in a cream colored linen suit, white Nike shoes on his feet, cross the court toward him. The new arrival was hesitant. Moving carefully, mindful of his footing. His head turning, eyes a little wide._

 _It was very common. Understandably so. Some people, especially the ones who had been dealing with a lengthy illness, had had time to grow accustomed to the idea, even to welcome it. They were much less hesitant. Some of them knew exactly where they were and their smiles were wide, their steps light. They had been waiting for this for a long, long time._

 _Others, though, people like the man coming toward him, were confused. Sometimes they weren't sure how they had come to be where they now found themselves. Some even had no memory of anything before that moment. They only knew that this, right here, was not where they had just been. A few carefully chosen questions from Peter, a little gentle prodding, usually brought the memories flooding back. And with the memories came realization, often followed by relief, or joy, maybe gratitude. But more often came regret, or shame, sometimes deservedly so, or protestations of unfairness, of not being ready._

 _Many times, new arrivals had come from a situation where tensions were running high, adrenaline pumping furiously through their bodies, maybe due to exhilaration, maybe to fear, or anger. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, the situation changed. The man or woman was suddenly, instantly, somewhere...else. The disorientation could be overwhelming; Peter knew that. He had been through it himself._

 _What the man was seeing now was different than what Peter saw. He wasn't seeing the court. Only Peter saw the court as it really was. What arrivals saw was different for each of them. Peter had suddenly found himself standing in a sunny, green field, bordered by a tree-shaded stream and surrounded by low hills spread with wildflowers. What arrivals saw was dependent on many things. Things they had been taught as children or had experienced later in their lives. It had to do with history and geography and culture and family, all filtered through a series of lessons, lessons that sometimes took the whole of their lives to learn, to understand. And there were those who never learned the lessons, never reached the understanding. But there were some, some who seemed to be born with it, although the world did not see it in them._

 _So Peter patiently watched the man come. He knew he would figure it out eventually, if perhaps he hadn't already. This man was special, even in a place like this._

I been mixed up a few times in my life. Okay, I been mixed up a lots o' times in my life. But I never been mixed up like I was right then. I didn't know how I got there, but I was of a sudden at Mama's house, just walkin' through the gate, 'cept there never was no gate, just a openin' in that ol' brick fence. An' it hadn't been Mama's house for a long time. It was my house after she passed, then it was mine and Jennie's an' little Forrest's house, an' then just me an' little Forrest, an' then just me ag'in. But just then at that moment, it felt like comin' home to Mama's house, and I didn't know how that could be.

The grass looked an' smelt like I had just mowed it an' it made me a little proud 'cuz I was good at mowin' that lawn, but as I was walkin' acrost it to the porch, still tryin' to figure out how I'd come to be there, I seen this feller standin' on the top step. I didn't recognize him, not at all, but he was lookin' at me, like he knowed me real well, kinda smilin' an' warm like.

"Hello, Forrest," he says to me.

"Hello." I said it careful, 'cuz would you believe sometimes when folks pretend t' know you, they's fixin' to cheat you?

"Do you know where you are?" he asked me.

I took a careful look around. It was as plain as day where I was, an' I figured maybe he was lost or somethin', but if he was, how did he know who I was?

"How do you know who I am?"

"I know all about you. I've been looking forward to meeting you for a long time, Forrest," he says.

I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say nothin'.

"Come up here and sit with me, Forrest," he said an' he waved me up on the porch to the wicker chairs where Jenny an' me used to sit an' drink sweet tea an' watch fireflies of an eve'nin'.

We settled in an' he says, "Tell me, Forrest, what do you remember before you found yourself coming through the gate into the yard?"

I had to think about that for a bit. It was all kind of a jumble, but after a few minutes, it started to come back. "I think I was watchin' tennis on TV," I said. Then I remembered. "No, no, it wasn't on TV, it was real life. I was watchin' a real life tennis tournament."

"Do you remember where?"

"Uh...it was at that National Tennis Center, the one in New York City." I remembered more as I said it. "It was the U. S. Open. I got invited on account o' me bein' a national an' Olympic ping pong champion an' all, an' a feller named Lleyton Hewitt beat Pete Sampras, an' folks was kinda sorry for Pete 'cuz he was thirty. I thought that was funny, 'cuz thirty ain't somethin' to be sorry for. An' the day before that, them sisters Venus and Serena was just a-hammerin' on each other, back an' forth, back an' forth, gruntin' and cryin' out, an' Venus won, but when it came time for the picture-takin', they was both smilin' like they each won."

The feller smiled hisself. "That was a good match, wasn't it? Do you remember anything else?"

"I remember how crowded it was. New York is always so crowded, but I kinda like it, all the jostlin' and bustlin'," I said. "Oh, I do remember somethin' else! The folks that invited me to the tennis tournament fixed it so I got to go to Madison Square Garden to see that nice boy, the one that used to sing with his brothers. Michael! Michael…Jackson! He was havin' some kind of a anniversary or somethin'. But it was funny 'cuz they was more other folks singin' his songs than he was. My favorite was the one gal, Gladys Knight, who sang about takin' the midnight train back to Georgia, which ain't even one of Michael's songs, but I didn't care. That song made me homesick for Greenbow, even though it ain't in Georgia."

"Why do you suppose it made you homesick, Forrest?"

"Because I couldn't go home yet. I had to go from New York to San Francisco, clean across the country. They was havin' the five year anniversary of the very first ever Bubba Gump Shrimp Comp'ny restaurant in Monterey an' I was supposed to…"

I stopped talkin'. When I get goin', it's hard sometimes to shut my mouth, but I shut it then.

The feller in the other chair didn't say nothin', he just sorta watched me.

"I was on a plane." I jumped right up out of that chair. "I was on a plane. We was flyin' from Newark on account of it havin' a direct flight to San Francisco."

He still didn't say nothin'. I turned an' looked out acrost the yard an' down the lane, an' I wanted to run, fast, 'cuz all those folks on the plane, they was…was gonna…

"Forrest?"

I turned back to him, an' I sat back down, reeeal slow. An' I couldn't help myself, I started bawlin' like a big baby, 'cuz I knowed now where I was. An' I was more mixed up than ever.

"Are you St. Peter?" I asked him.

"Yes, Forrest."

"Am I in Heaven?"

"Yes, Forrest."

An' I cried more. An' he says, "You're _crying_? There's no _crying_ in Heaven!" An' he smiled like he said somethin' funny, but whatever joke he was makin' sailed right over my head, like most of 'em do.

He got serious lookin' ag'in. "Why are you crying, Forrest?"

"I don't think I maybe should be here."

"Really? And why is that?"

An' so I told him about what happened on the plane.

We was flyin' for most an hour when up in the front where the first class folks sit an' where I usually sit on account of me bein' rich an' all, but my flight got booked too late an' first class was full, suddenly up front we heard yellin' an' fightin' an' fearful noise, an' one of the flight attendants went headed up the aisle to see what all the commotion was about when a feller with a red bandana around his head an' a thing belted around his waist come back through the curtain pushin' some folks ahead of him an' sayin' they had taken over the plane an' he had hisself a _bomb_.

'Bout then the plane felt like a big hand was suddenly just shovin' it down out of the sky. The feller with the red bandana an' the flight attendant an' everybody got jostled off they's feet an' everybody started to screamin' all at once.

Well, it felt like we fell for a long time 'til the plane got straightened out an' the feller with the bandana got up ag'in an' told all of us to get back to the back of the plane. We still could hear yellin' and bangin' from the front an' heard some screamin' an' a couple of the fellers back where we was started headin' up that way to first class, but the feller with the bomb made like he had somethin' in his hand an' said to get back or he would blow up the plane. They come back to where the rest of us was bunched up, and then the captain come on the speakers an' said to be calm an' there was a bomb an' we was gonna land, but we didn't land. The plane started makin' a big ol' turn instead.

The pilot came over the loudspeaker ag'in and said be calm an' we would be okay, but some folks back where we was started grabbin' they's cell phones an' the air phones from the back of the seats an' tryin' to call somebody to tell them what was happenin'. When they _did_ start gettin' hold of people, the folks they got a hold of was sayin' that a whole mess of planes had been hijacked and crashed into them tall skyscraper buildings at the World Trade Center, and even the Pentagon.

Folks was takin' turns with the phones an' talkin' to their families an' such an' everybody was sayin' the same thing, that there was attacks bein' made an' nobody knew what was happenin' or who was doin' it. They thought maybe our plane was gonna be crashed into somewhere like the White House or maybe even the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Well, I been to the White House a ton o' times, met me some Pres'dents, an' I didn't want no plane crashin' into it, 'specially no plane _I_ was on. An' I remembered that night, maybe the best night ever, so long ago when Jenny an' me walked arm-in-arm all over our nation's capitol, talkin' an' lookin' at the monuments an' such. I didn't like think' about a plane crashin' into any of those special places. I kept picturin' me an' Jenny standin' on the steps at the memorial for Pres'dent Lincoln and seein' a big ol' plane comin' right at us.

One of the fellers held out a phone to me, an' he said his name was Jeremy, an' I said "I'm Forrest, people call me Forrest," an' he said I should call someone. I only had me one person to call, an' that was little Forrest, who ain't little no more, but I still call him that, but he didn't answer his phone. I had to just leave him a message.

I said, "Hey, Forrest," an' I had to stop for a minute on account of I couldn't talk, then I said, "It's Daddy. I just want you to know that I love you very much, an' I'm proud, so proud of you, an' when I git back, we're gonna go bass fishin' ag'in."

An' I hung up. I didn't know what else to say. I didn't want him worryin' none.

Some of the other passengers was talkin' about what they should do an' they decided we had to take control of that plane. They thought the bomb was a pretend one. The flight attendants started heatin' up boilin' water in the kitchen in the back an' they rolled out one of them food carts to use for crashin' down the door to the cockpit.

The feller in the red bandana could see we was up to somethin' an' he went back through the curtain an' was yellin' to somebody. Jeremy says to me, "Forrest, that feller with the bandana is gonna try an' stop us. We _can't_ let him do that. We _have_ to get him out of the way of the cart, or a lot of people are going to die."

I'm not a smart man, but I knowed he was right.

We was about set an' we was just waitin' on a feller named Todd. He put down the phone he was talkin' on an' says to all of us, "Are we ready? Let's roll!"

I went first ahead of the cart, an' somebody was callin' out', "Run, Forrest!" like I been hearin' all my life, seems like. An' I ran. I went through that curtain like it was…well, like it was a curtain…an' there was _two_ fellers with red bandanas and they had them utility knives in their hands an' I seen at least two bodies on the floor, a woman an' a man', an' they had blood on them.

That was all I had time to see. One of them hijackers took a swipe at me with his knife as I run past, but I was set on the one in front of the door to the cockpit. I was thinkin' maybe I could smash him through the cockpit door myself, an' I tell you what, as scared as I was, I could see he was scared too. He shoulda been. I was goin' fast an' I hit him hard, hard enough that I saw light from the cockpit around the edges of the door when we hit it, but it still didn't open.

I grabbed him and swung him out of the way an' he was slashin' at me with the knife as we went down to the floor in that little space. People was screamin' and I felt hot water spray on me, an' there was all kinds of shovin' and commotion behind me, but all I could do was hold that feller down with one hand an' hit him with the other while he tried to cut me.

The plane was rockin' an' heavin' but that didn't matter to me 'cuz we was already on the floor an' there wasn't no room for us to go anywhere else. I'm not sure how long it was-couldn't'a been too long-an' I finally realized he wasn't movin' no more, an' I looked an' the cockpit door was open.

Two _more_ fellas with red bandanas was in the pilot seats and two or three of the passengers was rasslin' with them, tryin' to get at the controls. One of the hijackers kept yellin', "No, let it go, let it _go_!" I crawled through the door on my hands an' knees an' was tryin' to reach in an' pull his hands away from the controls so whoever was standin' over me could grab them an' the sound the plane was makin' was getting louder an' louder, just like in the movies, an' finally we got that hijacker away from the controls an' I figured we was gonna be okay. The passenger, I don't remember which one it was, grabbed the yoke thing, an' I said, "Pull it up."

An' then...I was here in the lane, walkin' through the gate.

St. Peter, he just sat an' looked at me an' then out over the yard whilst I blew my nose on my hankie, an' then back at me for a few minutes 'til the tears stopped runnin' down my face.

"Why is it you don't think you should be here, Forrest?"

"Because just a little bit ago, I was tryin' to _kill_ a man with my bare fist. The Bible says to 'love thy neighbor, an', 'Thou shalt not kill.' I figger I broke those commandments, an' I don't think you want somebody like me in Heaven."

St. Peter smiled again. "The Bible also says 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' That's you, Forrest. You proved it on that plane. You've proved it more than once in your life.

"It isn't a matter of whether your good deeds _outweigh_ your bad deeds. It never _has_ been. It never will be. Most of the people who feel they're worthy to be here, aren't. In fact, most of the people who feel unworthy are much, much closer than the others. It isn't a matter of feeling whether you're worthy or not. It's a matter of knowing the truth of Who God is, and how it relates to the truth about you, and what you've done with it. You are absolutely welcome here."

I sat quiet for a bit in my wicker chair, then I sniffled once, an' wondered somethin'.

"Is my best good friend Bubba here?"

He smiled ag'in. "Yes."

"Lieutenant Dan?"

"Legs and all."

I wanted to ask, but I was afraid, because I knowed she done lots o' bad things before.

"Is she…is Jenny here?"

"They're all here, Forrest. Do you know why?"

"No."

"Because of you, Forrest. You showed them the _truth_ about God. Your example of unconditional love and sacrifice and unwavering faith revealed a truth that they wanted for themselves and they took that truth about Him and looked at the truth about themselves, and realized what they needed to do, and they did it."

I wondered somethin' else.

"Do they have Dr. Pepper in Heaven?"

St. Peter laughed an' slapped his leg an' stood up.

"Get up, Forrest Gump. Let's go on in and I'll _show_ you what we've got here."

And he put his arm around my shoulders, an' that's the story of how I come to Heaven, an' that's all I have to say about that.


End file.
